Observation/Reflection #2: Eyes in the Back of Your Head: Observing Student Actions
From a seat in the rear of the room, observe your students and take notes on what they are doing while the teacher is presenting in the front of the room, while they are supposed to be taking notes, doing seatwork, and/or when they are working in the lab. Look closely at each student for a range of behaviors, and resist the temptation on only see what you expect. Note especially what is happening furthest from the teacher.
What strategies are used by your CT to encourage students to attend and engage? Watch carefully how your CT moves around the room. Draw a map of the classroom and sketch a path showing (approximately) this movement.
How important is student engagement to your view of how you will teach? What strategies will you employ to encourage student engagement? How will use your proximity to provide feedback and manage student behavior?
During both of my previous visits I observed my cooperating teacher from the back of the classroom. She uses a variety of strategies to keep her students on-task and engaged during her lessons. She has her students' desks arranged in rows. During the lesson, she moves back and forth across the front of the classroom. Occasionally and when necessary (if she sees a student who is distracted or is misbehaving) she moves between the rows of desks or circulates around the perimeter of the room. She also calls on students and asks them to answer questions during class - this helps her keep them engaged. During one class period I observed, a particular student was misbehaving and distracting other students with comments and conversation. When he started to distract others, she would move closer to him and he would quiet down. He would also stop his misbehavior when she called on him to answer a question. He tended to misbehave with more confidence when she was farther away from him.
Teacher movement map:
Student engagement is very important to my view of how I will teach. I think that chemistry is a very difficult subject to understand without enthusiasm. If students are not engaged and enthusiastic while in a chemistry class, they will not leave with the intended and required depth of content knowledge. Having a well-designed and attention-grabbing lesson is an excellent method for keeping students on-task and engaged. Students who are truly interested in the content of the lesson are much less likely to misbehave. In this case, proximity and other related strategies can be used as regulatory tools instead of being heavily relied upon. Proximity is an effective tool for providing feedback and managing behavior, but a teacher should not be walking over to a particular student's desk all the time with the expectation that this will change the student's behavior. When overused, proximity loses effectiveness. When teaching, I plan to use proximity sparingly and rely on other strategies, such as detailed planning, to keep students engaged and well-behaved.
Observation/Reflection #2: Eyes in the Back of Your Head: Observing Student Actions
From a seat in the rear of the room, observe your students and take notes on what they are doing while the teacher is presenting in the front of the room, while they are supposed to be taking notes, doing seatwork, and/or when they are working in the lab. Look closely at each student for a range of behaviors, and resist the temptation on only see what you expect. Note especially what is happening furthest from the teacher.What strategies are used by your CT to encourage students to attend and engage? Watch carefully how your CT moves around the room. Draw a map of the classroom and sketch a path showing (approximately) this movement.
How important is student engagement to your view of how you will teach? What strategies will you employ to encourage student engagement? How will use your proximity to provide feedback and manage student behavior?
During both of my previous visits I observed my cooperating teacher from the back of the classroom. She uses a variety of strategies to keep her students on-task and engaged during her lessons. She has her students' desks arranged in rows. During the lesson, she moves back and forth across the front of the classroom. Occasionally and when necessary (if she sees a student who is distracted or is misbehaving) she moves between the rows of desks or circulates around the perimeter of the room. She also calls on students and asks them to answer questions during class - this helps her keep them engaged. During one class period I observed, a particular student was misbehaving and distracting other students with comments and conversation. When he started to distract others, she would move closer to him and he would quiet down. He would also stop his misbehavior when she called on him to answer a question. He tended to misbehave with more confidence when she was farther away from him.
Teacher movement map:
Student engagement is very important to my view of how I will teach. I think that chemistry is a very difficult subject to understand without enthusiasm. If students are not engaged and enthusiastic while in a chemistry class, they will not leave with the intended and required depth of content knowledge. Having a well-designed and attention-grabbing lesson is an excellent method for keeping students on-task and engaged. Students who are truly interested in the content of the lesson are much less likely to misbehave. In this case, proximity and other related strategies can be used as regulatory tools instead of being heavily relied upon. Proximity is an effective tool for providing feedback and managing behavior, but a teacher should not be walking over to a particular student's desk all the time with the expectation that this will change the student's behavior. When overused, proximity loses effectiveness. When teaching, I plan to use proximity sparingly and rely on other strategies, such as detailed planning, to keep students engaged and well-behaved.